It is well known that flash memory devices, and at least some other types of semiconductor-based persistent storage devices, have limited endurance. For example, various implementations of flash memory cells have practical limits on the number of block erase cycles that can be performed before the reliability of those flash memory cells falls below an acceptable level (e.g., an associated bit error rate rises above the level that can be corrected using the error correction information stored with the data).
The embodiments described herein provide mechanisms and methods for reducing writes to persistent storage and thereby increase the practical useful life of such devices.